CREW Criticizes DOJ’s Indictment of Sen. John Edwards

June 03, 2011 01:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In response to the indictment of Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director
Melanie Sloan issued the following statement:

“It is surprising that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is following the
bungled prosecution of now-deceased Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) with this
remarkably weak case against former Sen. John Edwards. Like the Stevens
case, the Edwards matter is likely to leave DOJ with egg on its face.

While CREW has long been critical of DOJ for failing to aggressively
pursue cases against high-level government officials, the indictment of
Sen. Edwards is a strange place to start. DOJ declined to prosecute
former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) or former Sen. Conrad
Burns (R-MT) for selling their influence to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Similarly, the department passed on prosecuting former Sen. John Ensign
(R-NV), who conspired with his aide to violate the post-employment
lobbying restrictions and failed to report a $96,000 severance payment
made to his mistress to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Prosecution of any of those cases would have rested on solid court
precedent. Mr. Abramoff was found guilty of conspiracy to bribe public
officials, and Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) was found guilty of conspiracy to
violate the lobbying laws.

Although DOJ has argued it did not have the evidence to bring any of
those cases to trial, the department nevertheless has indicted Sen.
Edwards on strikingly flimsy charges. The government’s entire case rests
on finding that the payments made by Bunny Mellon and Fred Baron to
Andrew Young to support Rielle Hunter were in fact campaign
contributions. But no court has ever interpreted the definition of
campaign contribution this broadly. Further, in his book, Mr. Young
claimed that those payments were entirely proper gifts.

The prosecution’s theory rests on a 2000 FEC advisory opinion providing
that payments made to candidates to compensate for their loss of
employment income would be campaign contributions. In this case,
however, there is no allegation that any payments were made directly to
Sen. Edwards. Additionally, in a more relevant 2002 FEC enforcement
case, all six commissioners unanimously agreed that a loan made to a
congressman to help defray the costs of his divorce proceedings was not
a campaign contribution because the two had a pre-existing personal
relationship. So too here, Mr. Baron and Mr. Edwards were longstanding
friends. Finally, the unavailability of key witnesses will make this
case difficult to try: Mr. Baron died in 2008 and Ms. Mellon is 100
years old.

Sen. Edwards’ conduct was despicable and deserves society’s
condemnation, but that alone does not provide solid grounds for a
criminal case. DOJ’s scattershot approach to prosecuting public
officials is incomprehensible and undermines the integrity of the
criminal justice system.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a
non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials
accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org
or contact Garrett Russo at 202.408.5565 or grusso@citizensforethics.org.